For those of you who have been popping in for a long time this won’t be such a surprise as we have been wanting a more rural life for a decade closer to Oxfordshire and friends, but the timings didn’t work with the children’s education.

So let me tell you about the new place I will be sharing. It is a tiny cottage on the outskirts of a small town, in the Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire. The forest edge is just over the road so we can see the tops of the trees from the garden. The local artisan bakery sells Lardy Cake. Yep! I almost cried when I saw it in the window. I think that is when I truely knew I was back home in the south. Cider is sold readily in the pubs too. There was a brilliant free music festival in Coleford at the weekend. The cinema is only £2.50 during the week and is in a pretty Edwardian theatre building. Best of all you can walk for miles in the trees with the hounds.

I feel at home. The little cottage made us feel welcome at once. Maybe she had been lonely waiting for us with no tenant for 5 weeks?

It was a close run thing to move here as the seller’s solicitor in Lydney decided to go home when everyone was exchanging contracts. We only exchanged as our second removal lorry (for the plants) was almost full on the 4th July. Completion (the full sale) only happened when we were half way down the motorway to the cottage.

So as of the 4th July I have been busy reclaiming a jungle of a back garden, building flat pack furniture as the stairs are too tiny for large items, and trying to shoe horn all the clutter we brought with us into 1/3 of the house space. Lol I did declutter before we moved honest! I even thought I was being pretty brutal at the time! Note to self: you can never over declutter!

Sorry no pics yet as we don’t have the Internet sorted so pics won’t upload. I’m tethered to a mobile phone to send this until plus net get their act together. It was all meant to be sorted a week ago! They have even changed our telephone number from the one promised! Not impressed.

So I hope you will come with me as I explore around here and make the garden a home for my roses, and buy things like jasmine, everlasting sweetpea, more lavender, and a log cabin, and get rid of things like ivy, bramble, ground elder and stinging nettle. I will still be making things and hopefully sharing our little cottage as we get organised bit by bit.